Bayer: Pesticide Profits or Bees?

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a mysterious phenomena that kills off colonies of not only domesticated bees but wild bees as well.

Despite a lot of research since CCD was first recognized in 2006 the causative factors have not been identified and bee colonies world-wide are simply vanishing at an alarming rate.

In the US alone, the consequences, both environmental as well as economic are huge, and according to the USDA "bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables." Moreover, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organisation "of the 100 crop species which provide 90% of global food, 71 are pollinated by bees"

Five years ago when CCD was starting to get a lot of attention over in my Network World Backspin column I discussed (under the snappy title of "To Be Proactive or not to Bee") the soon thereafter discredited idea that radio signals from cellphone networks could be responsible. While, it turned out, cellphones weren't the cause, the failed theory raised an interesting question: If cellphones had been responsible, would our society be willing to give up using them?

I got a lot of email on the question and the vast majority of people said that if that was indeed the case they would be happy to give up their cellphone though they all thought everyone else wouldn't be willing.

The question I didn't ask, and in hindsight should have, was even if people were willing to forgo their cellphones, what would the cellphone service providers do? Would they have been willing to stop a very profitable business just to do the right thing? How would they have handled the problem? Would they have grasped the opportunity to put the environment first or would they have spun the issue so that as little as possible happened for as long as possible?

We'll never know whether cellular service providers' corporate profits would have won out over the bees but the question of corporate responsibility for CCD has just come up again. This time, the industry involved is the agricultural chemical business and, even more specifically, Bayer, the huge German conglomerate which is a giant in agro-chemicals.

Bayer produces nicotine-based pesticides called neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid. These products are harmless, in low doses, to humans but more or less lethal to bugs and while these chemicals can be applied safely, so it is claimed, the sheer scale of their use and the fact that not everyone who uses them is careful in their application is problematic. It now appears from three recent studies that even when used properly, where bees are concerned, these chemicals are toxic. Moreover, the Bayer products were approved by the EPA for use based on a study funded by Bayer which was later discredited by EPA scientists!

So, there's a lot of evidence that to points to Bayer pesticides as a, if not the, causative agent behind CCD.

Given Bayer's profits or the possible extinction of bees which would you choose?

First, let's consider what would happen if Bayer was to actually choose to stop selling neonicotinoids. If subsequent research shows that neonicotinoids aren't the problem, Bayer will have lost a few hundred million dollars but gained a lot of goodwill for adopting a "better safe than sorry" policy. If that was the case then maybe there's some way that Bayer could be compensated out of public funds worldwide. If, on the other hand, neonicotinoids are guilty as charged, then the consequences for Bayer would be far less harsh given that it appears they mislead the EPA in the first place.

Alternatively, let's say Bayer refuses and carries on selling neonicotinoids which are ultimately found to be the problem. Now the combination of having mislead the EPA and not acting responsibly makes Bayer look really, really bad. This scenario would make the phone bugging scandal that has hammered Rupert Murdoch's empire look trivial; Bayer could find itself in real trouble in every jurisdiction they operate in worldwide; every legislative body in every country would want a slice of Bayer's corpse.

The smartest thing Bayer can do is to immediately halt sales of neonicotinoids and fund transparent, independent studies to establish the facts.

You can have a hand in persuading Bayer's board to act responsibly: Avaaz.org has a petition that will be publicized at the Bayer shareholder's meeting in Germany tomorrow, Friday, March April 26. The text of the petition is:

We call on you to vote to stop production and sale of neonicotinoid pesticides until and unless new independent scientific studies prove they are safe. The catastrophic demise of bee colonies could put our whole food chain in danger. If you act urgently with precaution now, we could save bees from extinction.

Please join the more than 320,000 people who have signed the petition.

Your signature may be all that stands between bees and their extinction.